Teacher

I went to Shanghai to study in junior high school in 1957 when I was just eleven years old. The campus of that middle school was elegant and gorgeous, and even had a European-style marble fountain. In the eyes of a child from a rural area like me, it was like a mirage. But the first sight in the school at that time was the fluttering big-character posters. We couldn't understand them, so we just ran back and forth between the paper curtains, playing hide and seek.

I remember that the first class was a music class. The teacher was a young and handsome man. He walked from the blackboard full of music scores to the piano, talked about a few phrases and then opened his mouth to lead the singing. His voice was , so beautiful and so boring, we already know that he has just been classified as a rightist and is reviewing. When he was in class, there were often heads shaking outside the window of our classroom. When the music teacher saw it, he would just sing without talking, and the singing voice would be even weirder. Three weeks later, we received a notice that the music teacher was not coming. During music class time, we had to practice cantata in the corner of the playground. The lyrics of the chorus read: "1957, what a year of victory..."

Before long, it was difficult for other classes to proceed normally. The marble fountain has stopped spraying water, and a pig shed has been erected next to it. A steel-making furnace has been built next to the pig shed. The senior students raise pigs and make steel, while our task is to go to the streets to pick up scrap copper and iron as raw materials for steel making.

At that time, everyone was making steel. The national leaders issued a call to catch up with Britain in fifteen years and catch up with the United States in twenty years, but they did not understand the situation in Britain and the United States. They only believed in a saying that the sign of catching up was steel production, so Concentrating its efforts on fighting a war of annihilation, steelmaking is everywhere in China. All the iron gates in the lanes and the iron frames on the balconies of every house have been smashed down to be used as raw materials. Where can we children find iron? Anyone who picks up a rusty iron nail is like a treasure. After months of scavenging, I got very little, and the steel smelted next to the fountain was an ugly black lump. So the school changed its direction according to the instructions from its superiors and asked students to work in nearby factories. It was said that it wanted to combine education with productive labor and not sit in the classroom and study all the time.

The teachers set off and went to each factory to discuss, hoping that they would accept our labor. So many children in their early teens flocked to the factory. They were neither capable of working nor extremely unsafe, so the factory would of course not welcome them. The teachers could only plead again and again with red faces. They kept pleading until the factory directors suddenly remembered their early teachers and were moved, and then hesitantly agreed that we should work for a few months. After all, it didn't work. The factory quickly issued an eviction order, and the teacher had no choice but to find another one. Just like this, one factory after another took turns. During the three years of junior high school, I worked in almost all the factories around the school. In addition to working, teachers also have classes. Teachers know that there is not much time, so they always grab the little class time in their hands like a treasure and study it carefully. Those teachers were all highly educated. In my memory, they all had extraordinary demeanor and their lectures were excellent. In the midst of labor, in just three years, our composition writing ability has reached a point where we are fluent and almost do not make grammatical errors. Mathematics is even better. While walking on the road, as soon as I squat down, I can use pebbles to draw famous geometric problems on the ground with my classmates, and prove them noisily.

When I was in high school, I changed to a school closer to home. This school used to be a girls' middle school and had just admitted male students. The principal was a female teacher. I heard that she was the wife of a famous right-winger and was born in Cambridge, England. Not long after we entered the school, she was no longer able to be the principal, but she was still busy every day. We only peeked from the sidelines, trying to find the reactionary shadow of this teacher’s gait and mannerisms. When we met face to face, we called out "Hello, teacher", and she immediately returned the greeting, looking straight at us, longer than other teachers who looked at us in return. Our eyes immediately averted, thinking that this was probably a look with ulterior motives.

The successor principal was also a woman, dressed in homespun clothes. She had participated in the guerrillas in Shanghai during the Anti-Japanese War. When she gave us reports, she always used a rural accent that was difficult to understand, but she rarely gave reports. , I only have to say a few words, saying that I am uneducated and asking us to study hard. She walked on campus with no expression on her face, looking reserved and timid, but as soon as she saw students bowing to her, she immediately smiled. The good thing about this principal is that he never interferes with classroom content, and the teachers take the opportunity to leave the formal texts and add a lot of "extracurricular tutoring materials."

In the formal texts, the Chinese language is mainly based on newspaper editorials, and the English language is mainly political slogans. Through the "extracurricular tutoring materials", we quietly learned the entire "The Analects", recited Qu Yuan's "Li Sao", and even read the "Li Sao" that we did not know at the time. How did I get in? I have finished studying Volumes 1 to 4 of Essential English. Mr. Sun Yu, the English teacher, sticks to the London accent with unusual enthusiasm and laughs at the American accent every time. But it’s in his ridicule that we also get a rough idea of ??what an American accent is.

This year’s anniversary of my alma mater brings these intermittent memories back to the school I left for more than thirty years. Unexpectedly, it was these memories that brought endless disasters to the teacher during the "Cultural Revolution". I feel uncomfortable even repeating the insults suffered by the teachers in words. There is only one thing that can be talked about and laughed at: Our mathematics teacher Mr. Cao Hui is known for being apolitical. When we were studying, he was already very political. He was particular about his clothes and hairstyle, and even his hand gestures when holding chalk were as beautiful as a musician holding a conductor's baton, which made the female classmates who had just learned something at that time always look at him in confusion with red faces. As soon as the "Cultural Revolution" came, he was no longer good at all. He was criticized for several years, and finally he was asked to take the stage again. He decided to change his mind and start a new life, and continue to teach mathematics. So in the first function class, he introduced the most popular concept at the time: "We still have a small group of class enemies in China, a small group in Jiangsu, a small group in Zhejiang, and a small group in Anhui. Added together , It’s for the four small groups of class enemies..." He thought that giving a lecture like this was finally a political concern. Unexpectedly, he was criticized after the get out of class: "The superiors always only said that they were a small group of class enemies, but you made a fuss about the four small groups of class enemies. , I am clearly trying to protect the class enemy!"

This time I met Teacher Cao as soon as I entered the school gate. After greeting me for a few words, I wanted to confirm the authenticity of the above rumor. Teacher Cao said sternly: " The message was wrong. I didn't mean the small group, but the five small groups. I specifically added one from Shandong, because the master of the workers' propaganda team who came to attend the lecture was from Shandong, and I was afraid that he would be left out, so I didn't expect him to be added. I was criticized the most.”

Teacher Cao has become an old man, but I can recognize him at a glance. I think the fundamental reason is that the eyes and hearts of the students were affected by staring at him every day. It is also very pure and clearly branded. No matter how diffuse it is, it will not lose its origins. Of course, this is for the main teachers, but many non-main teachers really don’t recognize it. Most of these non-main subject teachers have retired a long time ago. They came here specially today and stood quietly by the roadside and at the corner of the stairs, hoping that the former students would recognize them. As soon as my eyes collided with theirs, I immediately sensed their expectations, and I quickly caught up, calling for the teacher while trying to recall their last names as quickly as possible. Like an electric shock splashing, sometimes I actually recall it in half a second and exhale loudly, and I can immediately feel the old man's warm hand trembling slightly in my palm. However, more often than not, the elderly are disappointed. At this time, I thought, as a student, you can make any mistakes, but you can never fail to call an old teacher by his last name when you face him many years after graduation.

There was an old teacher who looked at me in the corner of the playground for a long time, and hurriedly greeted me, "Li..." I was about to call him "Teacher Li" affectionately, but I immediately stopped because Suddenly I remembered that it was not his last name but his nickname: Liebknecht. The students would naughtily give their teachers some nicknames, mostly inspired by the teacher's lectures. The most outrageous thing was secretly calling a fat biology teacher wearing glasses "Paramecium", which was really disrespectful. The teacher in front of me is called World History. When he talks about Liebknecht, his pronunciation is particularly smooth and pleasant, so he got this nickname. What is his last name, I can’t remember. I just remember that we, students in our teens, heard rumors that this teacher was originally a famous judge in the old society and one of the editors of the "Six Laws Encyclopedia", and that he had serious political and historical problems. How did such a big shot end up teaching history in a middle school? I often looked at his eyes curiously in class. His eyes were calm and melancholy, ethereal and desolate. At that time, I was already interested in philosophy, and I had many questions that I couldn't figure out. After much thought, I felt that only he could help me. I still remember how surprised he was when I stopped him to ask him a philosophical question that day. He looked at me with his big eyes for a long time, then pulled me to the edge of the bush, quickly recommended a foreign philosophy book to me, and told me that in Which library can I borrow it from?

Today I mentioned this past incident again, and he actually remembered it all, and said that every time he saw my name in the newspaper, he always wanted to tell me that there were several errors in that philosophy book. "My surname is not Li, but my name is Du Xiangkong. I am old. I am eighty-two years old this year."

The situation of the elderly is something that should be asked more about but is most inconvenient to ask. I didn't see a few of the teachers I was most familiar with back then, so I was secretly worried, but I only dared to look around and search amidst the lively scene. The more you search, the more surprises you will find. My Chinese teacher, Mr. Mooney, passed away last year. Today, a middle-aged woman came to see me at the school anniversary. She is Mr. Mooney’s daughter. She said that Teacher Mooney left messages several times before his death, saying that he would transfer all his collection of books to me. My classmates and I were shocked when we heard it, because we all knew that it was a huge collection similar to a library. Mr. Mooney has been poor all his life just to buy these books; his family has been cramped in a narrow space that is difficult to turn around for decades, just to pile these books. He collected books not to write books but to prepare lessons for middle school Chinese classes. When he could no longer use these books to prepare lessons, he decided without hesitation to give them all to someone. A student who he thinks has better grades. Of course, it is impossible for me to really accept this sky-high gift, not to mention that I can’t even deal with my own collection of books now. But I still have to face Teacher Mooney’s daughter with a heavy heart: after so many years of graduation, I can’t even visit the teacher. It was just once or twice, but the teacher's last words suddenly caused a serious imbalance in the balance of favors. The biggest human imbalance in the world occurs for the first time between parents and children, and for the second time between teachers and students. When children and students discover this imbalance painfully, most of it is irreparable.

Suddenly stunned, I stopped: Teacher Jiang Qing came towards me to teach chemistry. I did not do well in chemistry, and I still have a fear of her thirty years later. Teacher Jiang is thin and elegant, still wearing those glasses and smiling so noblely. "There is one thing I want to apologize to you for." She said, "A few years ago, when you were still the dean, I met a group of students from your college in a restaurant. They were making a lot of noise and not following order. The customers who came first pushed aside, and your name was always mentioned in their noise. I couldn't help it, and walked over to ask them to obey the order, and told them that students who are your dean do not need to show off like this. I am your dean’s teacher and I am qualified to educate you - you see, I used your name in an inappropriate place.”

I quickly asked what the result was, and Teacher Jiang said: "These kids are pretty good. I thought they would call me a liar and scold me, but no, they immediately became quiet and queued up behind us obediently." I smiled comfortingly, imagining Teacher Jiang's soft voice. The majesty of time was experienced in chemistry class thirty years ago.

But Teacher Jiang, why have you ever assumed your name? Why do you need to apologize? You don’t know, since I accidentally became famous as a student, there are actually several people who have never given me a class who are eager to act as my teachers and make up my whereabouts, and the stories become more and more bizarre. My name, the name that you used to criticize or praise in class, is now floating on the covers of various pirated books, appearing in front of those film and television works that I have never "guided" or "consulted", and even It has also bizarrely become a banner for fundraising. For this reason, I fully understand why today’s female classmates who are already in their early fifties suddenly sob like children when they meet their former teachers. You are my undoubted teacher. Watching me grow up, my name is most real only when it is called out in your mouth. It is my honor for you to announce that I am your student in public.

I also want to thank my naughty students. They immediately quieted down and did not embarrass my teacher, thus saving my face. I know them very well. They are tall, loud-voiced, careless, and feel too good about themselves, but they are basically general-minded and reasonable, and they can understand their duties as students with just a few words. Thank you, my students.